Magnus Carlsen: Beyond #1

Yahoo

24-04-2025

APRIL 24 — Chess can be war. If it was war, then Norwegian grandmaster and presently the highest-ranked chess player in the world, Magnus Carlsen, has just invaded and grabbed more territory than ever.
Already a legend, Carlsen pulled off something mega jaw-dropping at the 2025 Grenke Freestyle Chess Open (held in the city of Karlsruhe, Germany): A perfect 9/9 score, winning every single game.
That's like Brazil or Germany winning every match they played on the way to victory at the World Cup — no draws, no play-offs, no extra-time sudden-death, no penalties, nada.
Just defeating every opponent, every challenger. That's not just winning; it's domination so absolute it is like Carlsen is playing a different game altogether.
Because, duh (!), at Grenke, Carlsen wasn't up against nobodies. He was up against top grandmasters like Awonder Liang and Parham Maghsoodloo, players who can make most of us feel like we're playing congkak.
The final opponent Carlsen defeated was Vincent Keymer, one of the world's strongest players and among the top 20 in ratings.
People were wondering if Keymer could stop the Carlsen train — alas, there was nobody slowing down this Norwegian engine.
Carlsen mowed them down, game after game. As he put it himself, 'It's incredible. I have never done that in classical chess, or in any format —and it's not gonna happen again!'
That's probably not arrogance; that's a guy who knows he just climbed a new Everest nobody else has.
Norwegian chess grandmaster Magnus Carlsen arrives at the 9th Annual Breakthrough Prize Ceremony in Los Angeles April 15, 2023. — Reuters pic
What also makes this streak mega-wild is the context. Freestyle chess, or Chess960, involves randomising the starting position of pieces, throwing opening theory out the window.
No memorising lines or leaning on computer prep here — just raw chess intellect, piece-crunching, analysis, etc.
Carlsen thrives in this chaos, where creativity and instinct reign. His ability to adapt, to see patterns where others see a mess, is why he's been the world's No. 1 since 2011.
This wasn't just a garden-variety tournament win (Carlsen's 128th of his career!); it was a statement that, even at 34, he's still the king of the board.
With freestyle chess, it's all about unpredictability, chaos and fun. One could say that Carlsen, by cementing his supremacy in the game, is also shaping the future of chess, reminding us why we fell in love with this 32-pieces-on-64-squares-board entertainment in the first place.
As Carlsen said, freestyle chess brings back the 'childish joy' of playing; you can feel that passion in every move he makes.
Let's also speculate on what kind of mental and psychological firepower it takes to pull off such a seven-game winning streak. I mean, sure there's "hard work" and "talent" involved, of course, but is there something else?
I reckon that, first, you've got to have a brain that's wired a bit differently from the rest.
Chess at the grandmaster level isn't about memorising moves — it's pattern recognition on steroids. Carlsen's mind likely processes the board like a living algorithm, seeing dozens of moves ahead while simultaneously reading his opponent's intentions.
A bit like an expert taxi-driver who just knows where certain streets are, how fast each traffic light will change, the likelihood of on-coming cars, the possibility of it raining and causing a jam, and keeping all this in mind while navigating through heavy traffic and maintaining a conversation with his customer.
Because winning seven straight games means Carlsen isn't just solving the puzzle of each position but doing it faster and more accurately than world-class opponents.
This isn't merely intelligence; it's a kind of hyper-awareness, where every piece, every square, every possibility is tracked in real-time.
Imagine juggling while solving a Rubik's Cube and defusing a bomb?
And let's not forget that crazy inexplicable factor called creativity.
Freestyle chess means the average chess player is naked without prep. Seven wins means Carlsen is inventing solutions on the fly, turning chaos into art.
This is where genius borders on magic — his ability to find beauty in a random position, to craft a plan where others see noise. This is some vision slash sorcery the world isn't used to seeing.
In short, Carlsen's victory at Grenke requires a mind that's part supercomputer, part predator, part artist, with the stamina of a marathoner and the swagger of a rock star. Damn, it almost feels unfair.
* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.